2-103 - Opportunities for Change: Maximizing the Impact of Quality Improvement Efforts in Early Care and Education Programs

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Research finds that a range of interventions effectively increase early care and education (ECE) classroom quality (e.g. Morris et al., 2014). However, we do not understand enough about implementation to maximize intervention resources. In fact, research suggests that many popular quality improvement strategies are not currently successful (e.g. Sabol, Hong, Pianta, Burchinal, 2013). This symposium provides insight into mechanisms that can be targeted to make ECE interventions more effective and efficient.

In order to build reliable and sustainable supports for quality improvement, it is important to understand the factors that contribute to teachers’ and programs’ ability to improve. Together, the three papers in this symposium examine the processes through which quality improvement occurs, as well as factors of both external interventions and ECE teachers and programs that contribute to successful quality improvement.

Paper 1 examines psychometric properties of a new measure assessing director, teacher, and external evaluator ratings of a preschool’s readiness to implement new practices, and explores the relation between perceived readiness and “star” ratings in Pennsylvania’s Quality Rating and Improvement System. Paper 2 examines variation in implementation of the consultant-supported BankingTime intervention as a source of variation in program impacts on children’s disruptive behavior. Paper 3 uses data from the Head Start Impact Study to explore mediating pathways between program supports for teachers’ professional development and classroom quality via teachers’ participation, beliefs about teaching, and job satisfaction. The discussant will provide integrative comments regarding the relations among interventions, readiness to implement, program supports, classroom quality, and children’s outcomes.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• Maia C Connors, New York University

Discussant

• Jason Downer, University of Virginia

Individual Presentations

• Assessing a Preschool’s Readiness to Implement Using Multiple Raters and Multiple Levels - Presenting Author: Shannon B. Wanless, University of Pittsburgh; Jennifer O Briggs, Univ of Pittsburgh; Joseph Walter Pieri, University of Pittsburgh

• Variation in Teachers’ Implementation of BankingTime: Association with Teacher Practice and Children’s Disruptive Behavior - Presenting Author: Jennifer LoCasale-Crouch, University of Virginia; Amanda P Williford, University of Virginia; Jessica E Vick Whittaker, University of Virginia; Catherine Elizabeth Sanger, University of Virginia; Lauren Merkle Carter, University of Virginia

• Pathways to Quality: From Professional Development Supports to Early Educators’ Practice - Presenting Author: Maia C Connors, New York University